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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30135417">Head to Head</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SentientBot/pseuds/SentientBot'>SentientBot</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Superman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alien Biology, Angst, First Time, Gore, Graphic Description of Injury, M/M, Porn With Plot, Strength Kink, Tags Subject to Change</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-20 14:13:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,053</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30135417</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SentientBot/pseuds/SentientBot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What comes to light when you’re trapped beneath a quarter of a million tons of failed concrete with a man you hadn’t realized you love? Both Clark and Bruce are subject to find out.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>129</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Listen this didn’t start as smut, but that’s sure where it ended up. I'm probably posting this a little preemptively, I've only got the rough draft of the story done, but I had fun working on it. Oh also, I tend to nerf comic characters because I think it makes them more fun to write.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The evacuation wasn’t moving nearly as quick as Clark needed it to be. Bruce had called in the emergency less than a minute ago, so he and Barry had been the only ones able to make it in time to do any good. Even with both of them going top speed, it was still cutting it close. Bruce was in the basement of one of his acquired buildings in New York disabling a detonator, wired to set off charges big enough to bring the building down, and Clark had been periodically xray-ing to see how much more time they had.</p><p>Thirteen seconds. Thirteen seconds and almost two hundred more people to go. They’d be cutting it close, but they couldn’t push any faster and risk hurting someone.</p><p>Two seconds and 30 people to go. No complications so far. Clark felt a tenseness in his spine start to relax, then he heard a chemical fizzle. The bombs were beginning to detonate.</p><p>He needed to get Bruce out <i>now</i>. The basement was far enough beneath the bombs that the blast wouldn’t reach him before Clark could, but Clark couldn’t afford to get anyone else out of the building. Barry would have to up the speed and take the risk of injury to get everyone out.</p><p>Clark didn’t bother sticking to doors and hallways when he went in, the building was a lost cause by this point. Right as he plowed through the outer wall, he caught a flash of green. Looks like Lantern showed just in time, he’d be able to protect the people still in the street. Clark could head in guilt free.</p><p>Bruce had been knocked on his back already, and Clark had just enough time to slide between him and the rapidly falling ceiling. He landed with elbows on either side of Bruce’s head with a large, intact chunk of the ceiling settled across his back, which gave them a bit of horizontal breathing room.</p><p>The building above was still collapsing as he brought himself back to relative time. The stench of burned flesh rapidly filled the enclosed space. They were in perfect dark, which made seeing with visible light difficult, so he blinked over to a different particle frequency to look over Bruce.</p><p>Bruce had a light scratch on one exposed cheek. The attack happened during “business hours”, so Bruce wasn’t in the batsuit, just some expensive fabric that didn’t do anything to help protect him. Bruce’s eyes were shut, his face relaxed, and Clark’s hearing was currently so stretched that he couldn’t immediately find the heartbeat that should be beneath him. There was a moment of panic before Bruce’s striking eyes fluttered open.</p><p>Clark let out a breath in relief, and tipped his forehead forward onto Bruce’s. He muttered a choked “Rao,” under his breath. Clark could feel the heat of Bruce’s body, they were so close, and Clark welcomed it. He gave himself a second to breathe and looked Bruce over. He’d taken his jacket off, and one of his sleeves was torn, showing another shallow scrape on his arm. He had a large patch of burned skin on the outside of his right thigh, and Clark felt a semblance of nausea when he could hear the layers of skin pull apart as blisters slowly formed.</p><p>Bruce looked up at him, almost directly in the eye. He lifted one of his hands to Clark’s ribs, one of the few places he could reach, and faintly tapped out the sequence asking for a status.</p><p>“Oh you want <i>my</i> status?” Clark was glad for the opportunity to be sarcastic, proof that things weren’t as dire as they could’ve been. But Bruce didn’t react in any way, and Clark realized his hearing might be blown from the blast. So he lifted his right arm, taking the weight above him on his left shoulder without shifting, and reached down to where Bruce’s hand was pinned to their sides. He tapped out “A-O-K” in morse on Bruce’s palm, then returned the status cue. Bruce just shook his head, nose almost brushing Clark’s, and he closed his hand loosely around Clark’s wrist as his eyes slid shut again.</p><p>Clark turned his attention to the rubble above them, trying to see where he could shift things to let them fly out without crushing Bruce. He huffed in frustration.</p><p>They’d been buried right in the center of the collapse, so nothing he could do immediately. He knew Lantern would be able to dig them out, but it might be a while. Jordan tended to go about things in a very round-about way, and wasn’t always the most efficient once the emergency had passed. He was Superman, but holding a plank for that long wasn't fun.</p><p>Clark sucked in a last breath and held it. Their little pocket was big enough that air wasn’t a major concern, but he needed to do something to stay in control of the situation. He lowered his forehead back to Bruce’s and shut his eyes, trying to settle into a calm center.</p><p>Bruce’s hot breath fanned over his face, and Clark realized how close they were. He pulled his head back to give Bruce space, but Bruce’s fingers tightened around his wrist, so he lowered his head back down. Bruce relaxed so minutely that he might not have noticed he did it, but that reaction made a little warmth spread in Clark’s chest.</p><p>“Rao,” Clark whispered again, “What would I have done-” he choked on the words. “I wish I could tell you… I need you- I need you to stick around. Please.” There was something therapeutic about being able to say it so safely to his face.</p><p> After a minute, Bruce’s breathing grew ragged beneath him. Clark pulled his wrist from Bruce’s loose grasp and tapped again for a status.</p><p>“At least one dislocated rib,” Bruce says quietly, the words oddly slurred out on some of the vowels since he couldn’t hear himself, and very loud in the small space. “Maybe two. Left clavicle cracked. Burn on right leg. Second degree.”</p><p>‘H-O-W’ Clark taps out. He wasn’t near enough any of the bombs to have been burned.</p><p>“The detonator-” Bruce tensed in pain before continuing. “I super charged the battery by accident in an attempt to fry it. It blew up and set the charges off anyway.” A moment of silence while he reigned in his breathing. “There were two detonators, only one worked. I guessed wrong.”</p><p>‘W-H-O’</p><p>“It was called in on one of the office phones. It wasn’t long enough to get a tracer on it.” Bruce’s pronunciation was getting better and he was lowering his voice, so Clark guessed his hearing was coming back.</p><p>“Was it Joker?” he asked, testing it.</p><p>Bruce shook his head. “There wasn’t any gloating. It was cut and dry... Not his MO.” His voice wasn’t steadying, and a tremor had started up in his burned leg. Clark could smell him break out into a fresh wave of sweat when he took a too-deep breath and agitated the rib.</p><p>“Where are your painkillers?”</p><p>“Belt, third compartment.” Clark shifted his hips back to allow room for Bruce to reach. Everything piled on them shifted at once, making Bruce flinch.</p><p>Bruce pushed a syringe into Clark’s hand, who had to awkwardly twist to be able to poke him at the top of his right thigh, but he managed to keep the rubble above them from shifting again.</p><p>“Bruce, pass out if you need to. Lantern might be a minute getting us out,”</p><p>To his surprise, Bruce gave a sharp nod instead of arguing. His eyes closed again and he was out within the minute.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I scrapped a good chunk of the outline for this and re-wrote it with a bunch of angst. Which is a bunch more than I had planned on it having. But not yet don’t worry.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Clark had dropped Bruce off at Gotham hospital an hour ago while still in cape. Right after that he called Alfred and debriefed him, then returned to the collapse site to help clean up. He worked on clearing the bigger pieces of the collapse for an hour before Alfred let him know Bruce had just gotten out of his emergency procedure and they were allowing him visitors. It took Clark four minutes to head home, shower the dirt off, change into his civilian clothes, stop by the manor and pack Bruce an overnight bag just in case, and swing by Metropolis again because he forgot his laptop and the article about that politician, Jacobs, that was due tomorrow, and then head straight back to the hospital.</p><p>He sat beside Bruce’s bed for another six minutes, busying himself with polishing his second draft, until he heard a change in Bruce’s breathing. Bruce didn’t move except to blink his eyes open after a few seconds, and Clark recognized the survival tactic. Keep up the pretense of sleep until you better understood your circumstances. He’d never experienced it himself, but this wasn’t the first time he’d seen Bruce do it.</p><p>The vinyl layer of the hospital bed was loud under Bruce’s head when he turned toward Clark. “Why am I in a hospital?” he said, a little bleary from the anesthesia.</p><p>Clark opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted by Alfred walking back in with two paper cups of tea, and a third of coffee.</p><p>“Your burn was too severe for us to deal with it ourselves. A deep second degree situation, 6.2% coverage, you’ll have permanent scarring.” Alfred handed the coffee to Clark and set one of the teas on the tray beside Bruce’s bed before sitting down in a naugahyde chair against the wall. “They want to keep you through the week.”</p><p>“Bullshit,” Bruce grumbled. “What did you talk them down to?”</p><p>“I had half a mind not to fight it at all,” Alfred said sternly, and Clark was surprised. He hadn’t picked up that Alfred was angry earlier.</p><p>“Because of the Kiton?” Bruce asked in annoyance, letting his eyes slide back shut.</p><p>“I don’t know why you couldn’t have been wearing last fall’s Fioravanti when they took shears to you.” Alfred gave a little exasperated huff, then looked toward the window and mumbled loudly to himself, “Wearing a Kiton to a zoning meeting…”</p><p>The room settled into silence, and for the life of him Clark couldn’t figure out if it was tense or not. A corner of Bruce’s mouth flicked up and he muttered, “Could have been the Scabal.”</p><p>Alfred scoffed and stood up. “I have half a mind to not let you wear it out the house.” Then with not much of a pause, “You’ll be here for two nights before they’ll sign you off to me for home care. And you will be staying both those nights.”</p><p>Bruce accepted that with silence.</p><p>-</p><p>It took four days of Clark visiting the manor before he accepted Alfred’s insistence that he take a room. It was a little game they played. Bruce would bench himself, Clark would visit and insist that’s all it would be because his Midwestern manners kept him from stepping on a hosts toes, but would visit every day anyway until Alfred got sick of answering the door for him.</p><p>Clark followed Alfred to his guest room (it was the same one every time, but it was part of the game for Alfred to show him to it) to drop off a bag of toiletries and spare clothes before heading up to Bruce’s room.</p><p>Bruce met him on the stairs coming down. He was in a tight black t-shirt and gray pants that were loose until the knee, then stayed tight before they cut off halfway down his calf. His running shoes were a blinding neon green. “Go to work today?” Bruce asked a little testily.</p><p>“Bruce, if you don’t want me here I’ll leave, I’m not trying to be a nuisance,” Clark hadn’t expected the hostility, but he had been basically down Bruce’s throat for the past few days.</p><p>Bruce rolled his eyes and waved for him to follow. “I didn’t use the Alginate dressing last night, and the edges of the scab have been itching since I woke up, I didn’t mean anything by it,” he said dismissively.</p><p>“What does that feel like? Itchy I mean,” Clark asked. He knew itchy was something people felt, but he didn’t know that being very itchy could be extreme enough to change someone’s mood, like pain could.</p><p>The question stopped Bruce short halfway down a stair. He shot Clark a bewildered look before turning back and walking on, not bothering with a response. Bruce didn’t weaponize his expressions very often, but when he did they were effective, and Clark didn’t think there was a time in recent memory he’d felt so immediately alienated. And in the most literal sense of the word. But he put his reaction to the side, planning on revisiting it when he was further from the incident. That was the key to maintaining a friendship with Bruce. Rarely was the first reaction to something the one you should show. So for now, he followed Bruce into the yards behind the house.</p><p>He flew alongside while Bruce ran, since he didn’t like running in his jeans. It was the fastest way to wear through them and he already hated how often he had to buy clothes. He had to keep switching stores because the employees started recognizing him after a while. He floated along on his back, head about level with Bruce’s and watching the clouds shift from a light gray overcast into a darker, more threatening form.</p><p>They went along in silence for the first ten minutes, and surprisingly it was Bruce who broke it. “You did go to work today though?”</p><p>“Yeah, I stopped by for a few hours, did some light editing.”</p><p>“The Jacobs article still?” It always caught Clark off guard which details Bruce had actually paid attention to, and then which of those he had active interest in.</p><p>“I technically have to wait for the court case to completely close out before we can publish it, so that one’s pretty much done.” Clark talked more about the new story he had picked up as Bruce ran on. He was sure Bruce was focused on other things, but he was happy to fill the silence.</p><p>They got to the thirty minute mark and Bruce stopped to stretch. “Have you ever been sore?” he asked, unexpectedly.</p><p>“Yeah, every time I come into contact with Kryptonite I’m sore all the next day.” Clark saw a potential apology in the question for his reaction earlier, but this was the closest they would get to talking about it.</p><p>Bruce just nodded at that. He picked up his right knee and pulled it to his chest, then Clark heard a snap like a sausage’s skin bursting in a fire, and Bruce’s face immediately drained of blood. He put the leg down slowly, but Clark had a hand on his elbow for support anyway. Bruce took a steadying deep breath in, and Clark was gone and back with bandages and the burn kit before he had finished.</p><p>“Do you want me to take you back?” Clark asked.</p><p>“You’re not going to carry me, we can deal with it here.” The color was already coming back to Bruce’s face.</p><p>The current bandages were already starting to soak through with blood where the scab had split. When he pulled it away from Bruce’s leg, he saw the crack was about 7 inches, running horizontally across the outside of Bruce’s thigh, oozing blood.</p><p>“Hold on,” he said, then blasted his hand with his heat vision to sterilize it, a trick Bruce himself had theorized a year or so back. He blew on it to cool it back off before using his fingers to cover the split in an antibiotic. Bruce rested a hand on his shoulder for balance as he took his weight off the leg. Clark worked on slathering the massive fresh scab in a heavy white gel, working from the outside of the leg to the front. He pasted gauze over it and taped the edges down.</p><p>He stood up from where he was crouched, and Bruce kept his hand on Clark’s shoulder. They were close, only inches away from each other, and Clark heard Bruce’s heart start up a triphammer beat. His own picked up in response. Bruce’s incredibly pale eyes looking intently at him. It wasn’t often that Clark got to see those eyes from so close. If Clark thought they were striking when he was buried under a building, then it was only because he hadn’t seen them under the soft gray light of Gotham’s eternally overcast sky.</p><p>Clark thought about the way Bruce’s hand had tightened around his wrist the last time they were this close, heard his heart hammer away, and took a gamble. He leaned his face toward Bruce's. The warm fan of his breath spread against his face, still elevated from the run. He flicked his eyes down to his mouth, and back up to Bruce’s in time to see them dilate.</p><p>Bruce lifted his other hand to Clark’s ribs, fingers grazing the thin fabric of his t-shirt, and Clark closed the distance between them.</p><p>For a moment all it was was a press of lips. Then Bruce opened his mouth and Clark was quick to follow his lead. Bruce’s mouth was hot, moving against his. One of Clark’s hands found Bruce’s face. He cradled it in his palm, swiping his thumb across his cheek, and Bruce’s tongue slid into his mouth.</p><p>Clark couldn’t think of a time he had ever been more grateful for his lack of a need to breathe than he was right now, holding out through the long minutes before Bruce needed to pull back. Bruce tipped his head against Clark’s while he sucked in air. Clark swiped his finger across his cheek again and felt a thrill at the goosebumps that popped up under his fingers.</p><p>Bruce opened his mouth to say something, but suddenly all of Clark’s attention focused due south east. Sounded like a natural disaster across the Pacific. This had to be some of the worst timing of his life.</p><p>He turned back to Bruce who looked steadily back at him. They watched each other for another few seconds.</p><p>“Sorry,” he whispered. Bruce shook his head once before stepping back, and Clark lifted off.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The Kiton I had in mind (worn as a two piece, unless you want to re-imagine the first chapter with Bruce in a waistcoat, you're more than welcome to do so, it sounds hot)- <a href="http://kiton.co.jp/collections/2017fw_men/images/1.jpg">text</a></p><p>We'll be earning that explicit rating next chapter, promise.</p><p>EDIT- I re-did the math for the burn-surface-area bc it didn’t look right, so it’s been changed from 2.6% to 6.2% my B.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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